Of being deserving
by Reyavie
Summary: Revenge's a dish best served cold. The Warden takes it literally, Jowan discovers.


AN - Again, a dark piece. Containing violence and character death. Not a happy walk in the park and possibly confusing, you have been warned. Dedicated to Shakespira because she was the one who gave origin to the premise in the first place. Moira is the human-mage PC. Repost due to ffnet's unexplainable problem with the previous summary.

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His door remains unlocked at all moments, day or night, Jowan learned it didn't matter if he did otherwise. Locked and with a chair against the handle, his Commander would always find her way inside. It was an odd ritual of hers since leaving the Tower. Enter, look at him, analyze, always without a word, never leaving an explanation to her actions. And then leave. Always in silence. Moira has learned to be silent in all the meanings of the word. No sound betrays her feet when she moves, no whisper follows her blades, no words leave her lips to explain her actions.

That night is no different. He is already resting, covered by thick blankets and shuddering due to the cold sweeping through the Castle's walls when his door opens and her head peeks in. No sound, no whisper, no warning. Moira enters like the room belongs to her and she has every right to step inside.

_Only it is_. He feels the tinge of the unknown, of unfamiliarity when Moira doesn't stop at watching. In two steps, she is right by him, a finger on her lips, her other hand resting on his upper arm.

"Moira? What's…?"

Her hold turns into a pinch, fingers deftly gripping flesh in between and twisting without their owner appearing bothered.

Silence. Right. Silence. Jowan cannot understand her quirks completely but he does know how to obey and follow. Especially since when she does speak, she saves him. He pinches his lips tightly shut and her grip eases back. In the moonlight, he can see her moving her free hand again. Follow. Fine, he can follow.

Moira never waits for him, she never did, not even when they were in the Tower. In a way, he knows she trusted him to follow. Or to try to and be strong enough to manage. If he wasn't, life sucked, she would get over it. Warden or not, that hasn't changed. Just like in the Tower's halls, she moves to leave the room, clearly expecting him to follow, and Jowan dresses without thinking clearly about it. A simple robe, the first boots he finds, his staff, where is his staff?

Three knocks on the door. Moira's knocking. Waiting.

_This is new. _She never does.

In less than minute, he's ready to follow and she's already running. Silent. All he can hear are his own clumsy footsteps shadowing hers because no one else moves in the Keep. If he forces himself, there are voices of the guards while they make their rounds but nothing more. And, oddly enough, they never meet any in the darkened hallways. He doesn't even recognize where she's taking him. Moira just guides, he just follows and neither speaks.

Second to the left, first to the right, a long hallway lightened badly by torches and then stairs down. Jowan recognizes a basement before all light fades behind them and Moira reaches out for his hand instead of conjuring one to light the way.

Until they stop next to a door; he can feel Moira opening it, the hinges loud as Chantry bells in the early morning.

"Here."

Jowan almost breaks the first rule of dealing with the Warden-Commander even before entering the room she has brought them into. Never ask stupid questions. Asking where they are – when all he can see is a poorly illuminated room – and what they are doing there would apply. He calls her name, hoping it will be enough for her to stop staring at nothing like her purpose to wake him at inane hours has just vanished.

Only she is not staring at nothing. She looks at_ him_ and then again to the further corner of the room. Waits. Until he catches up again and actually follows her gaze.

At the very corner, huddled against the wall like it's her only defense, there's a woman.

Lily.

It is _Lily_. No longer in her chantry robes but still his Madonna, his perfect woman, the girl who gave him his hand in the middle of mass, hidden by countless people and the tall wooden benches. She lays in tatters, bloodied, hair in disarray and an expression that's a mix of fear and hope.

"Moira?" He repeats. "Is that?"

The Commander pays him no mind. Before, she was fast; now, he cannot describe it. In one second, she's by his side, in the other, she's gripping the woman's neck and an arm, holding so strongly that Lily's face shows only pain and she screams accordingly.

There are wounds underneath the tattered fabric, Jowan realizes suddenly, and Moira knows it too. _She placed them there._

"I don't…" _Understand_.

His words are cut short as the woman moves again. A quick release and then a slap, resounding solidly in the empty space. And Moira doesn't lose a moment before kicking the frailer body, caring little for any whimpers and crying, that the woman is pleading for something, from her and him. Nothing seems to move the other mage.

"Moira. Moira, stop." He tries to hold onto her but it is like trying to hold the wind. The woman he knows isn't uselessly cruel and this one is. He sees her move without hesitation, sees each punch and kick and he could step in between, protect Lily. He could. Why doesn't he? Why doesn't he ask what's going on and why, why can't he understand any of this?

Light fills the room and nearly blinds him with its intensity. It takes its time to show itself as magic. This is also an order which doesn't need words. The other mage stops attacking and looks at him. Serious, so serious, deadly so. All in her speaks _don't interfere_, nearly as effectively as the glyph which now glues him to the floor beneath him.

"They didn't take her to Aeonar," Moira explains properly for the first time, a soft tone of voice of one who doesn't use it often. "They didn't take _her. _Gregoir said he would but he didn't. He almost killed me. They almost destroyed you but they let her get away."

He has never seen so much hate in her face as when she leans towards Lily, grabbing her chin only to throw it to the side, randomly against the wall. Or on purpose. "They did but I won't."

Jowan doesn't struggle against the glyph. Moira is stronger, that's why he turned to blood magic. Because without it, he wouldn't be able to catch up to her. He wouldn't be able to chase. To struggle will be to tire himself and annoy her as he will only be released when she wants to and no sooner. She'll let him go when he sees what she's showing, a show of violence he cannot find a reason to.

She carries a dagger and, patiently, slowly, methodically, she carves drawings into the former Sister's skin; laps at the blood with her hands and her magic is earthshattering, turning every trace of air, every touch of dust. Blood magic. She is using Lily but, for what purpose, he cannot guess.

"Why?" The redhead turns her face to him as if this is normal and she is not murdering a person. "She is asking_ why_, Jowan. Why. _Why?_" Up and down the dagger slides, down, down the blood flows, the stain enlarging with every moment in hypnotizing waves just as he begins to taste a type of magic Moira has never used. "Why did she back away from you? Why didn't she run? Why did she betray? Why were we to die and she was in Amaranthine, sleeping in her bed, protected and cared for? Why, indeed."

Moira hates stupid questions.

"The question she should ask is different. Why am I dying?"

He has never seen this smile either, between sadistic and satisfaction over a job well done, a perfect plan undertaken. And the magic grows with the last movement of the blade, sweeps through his body and into his veins and he can swear the voice in his mind is Moira's, the gratification with that last blow, the happiness when Lily's life is wasted in a spell without purpose. The glyph fades against him at the same time and he's free to move. Only he doesn't. Moira moves too close to him again, stops him just like before. Hands on his arms and silence.

"You used blood magic."

Moira's shaking, so bloodied that Jowan takes his time to understand she's also hurt. But she also stopped smiling and he has no words to describe how good it is to see her half-impassive, half-exasperated expression.

"It was necessary," she says simply, almost too simply. "Did you feel it?"

_Feel what again?_

Even as he thinks it, he knows it's another silly thing to ask her. He knows. He felt. Delight and coldness, the feeling of ending a life she hated. Jowan felt exactly what she had when killing the woman at their feet. Even then he can feel the aftermath, that tiny trace of fulfillment that still courses through her body. Moira sighs, fingers trailing on the fabric of his robe, rising until they rest against his cheek. Blood stained and injured, clawed from where Lily had tried to defend herself.

"You would have felt pity," Moira continues. "You would feel guilty. You wouldn't have felt happy about it."

A trace of pride bristles somewhere within before he can shut it down. "I could still have done it!"

"It doesn't matter!" And her reaction is so boisterous, so _loud _and unlike her. Her breathing becomes more labored, her body slumping against his in tiredness. This is a price of blood magic but not the only one. Moira shouldn't have used it. Not for him. "She stained your hands. She made you harm yourself. She is not worthy of any of the sort."

His hand follows hers, skin against skin. It's still bloody and the blood is being shared. He should feel disgusted, shouldn't he? Because he loved that woman once. Though.

"What about you? You just killed for me."

There's the look he knows, exasperated and annoyed because he's slow, he's so slow and takes his time to catch up. Moira even rolls her eyes, as if he has just asked her to copy on the next exam.

"_You_ are worthy."

_Though_. He loves this one more. The one stained for him, bloodied for him, a killer for him. So the rest doesn't matter. Jowan doesn't look at the body before they leave. He never knows what the Commander does with it because it doesn't matter. The book is closed and the story burned into ashes.

All that's left is to follow her again.


End file.
